


My Mind's Eye

by nigellecter



Category: Doctor Strange (2016)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-27
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-02 13:21:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 9,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8669242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nigellecter/pseuds/nigellecter
Summary: The Ancient One x Kaecilius RP. Between nigellecter and little-lady-lecter <3





	1. Chapter 1

_She is peace. Silence, blessed release of the mind and spirit flows through her core as the infinite expanses of time stretch beneath her. She sees her death, an end in violence and in peace, alone at the edge of time. But there is nothing that stretches beyond. It is as if time cuts short just as she slips into the void, and all else fades to black. Does time cease to exist beyond her passing? Or is this death truly a fixed point in the continuum? She has mastered death, but not to the point where she believes she is beyond such a thing. Dormammu has been kind to her, for she has refused to allow herself to succumb._

 

A sigh escapes the Ancient One’s lips. She has seen this coming for quite some time. She only wished she knew which possibility would befall her. The thought that it would be _him_ stirs darkness within her, and she struggles to maintain peace in her spirit. As she meditates, she re-sets her thoughts and wills herself to remain at peace. Infinite possibilities of her death stretched before her, for she was unable to pinpoint an exact time and moment in which she would die. Only that it was to happen, whether she believed she could fight it or not.

  
  
As she stands, she decides to walk outside into the arena where her students are training with one another. She takes just a moment to correct a younger woman’s posture, to offer a word of advice to the older boy who attacks too harshly that he cannot control his actions, before crossing the walkway to find the one she sought. He was outside, and as usual, was alone in his obsessive, fanatic studies of realities not meant for anybody to fully grasp. She feared it would consume him.

 

“You should know that social company can be good for the development of the working mind. Solitude is strengthening, but one must learn to play nicely with others, dear Kaecilius.” The Sorceress smiled, folding her hands in front of her. _Are you the one to bring about my death, dear Kaecilius? And if so, is this fate to be played out before us?_ _You are an uncertainty if there ever was to be one._

 

“I do think you’ve looked at that book enough. Walk with me. I’d like to speak with you.”

____

 

Well-accustomed to the leaking torment and grief spilling out as he soliloquies, he watches it disembogue into a river, and course through him through his most battered and bruised places. No matter how many years had been passed and no matter how long he effortlessly tried to tame such irritatingly fickle thing that was his grievance, it would wound around the bend and curve of his muscled planes and refuse to vanish out of his sight in self-deprecation. The emblem on his forehead glows in a deathly silence as accumulated energy, volatile and unforgiving, stirs within his core. Such energy that benefited the humanity and bringing order of the sanctum now makes him to be high off the fumes.

 

Through the brute force of violence, his exerted strength shot out like a streak of lightning. Too fast, too flashily dramatic and detrimental to one’s fatality and nothing short of leaving a mess full of splatters of blood, peeping entrails through broken ribs and concave skulls. And it was the truth; through gaining access to the Dark Dimension’s power, it was as if the glowing serrated mark had been his third-eye, the tapped knowledge only he and few selected others could be perceivant.

 

And _yet again_ , he had retracted into the darkness, of the shadows attached at his feet, in his solitude as the lingering sunlight spills its beams of liquid gold onto his cheeks. The fissures around his abysmal hazel cascades downward, as if that itself had been his grief, pouring onto his chest. Dry breezes as his fingertips sweep across the sun-baked earth, gravels stir beneath him as a serrated chain of dirt shoots onto the wall with a whipping force. Sauntering around with the deep orange glow of the magic still attached at his fingertips, he pivots around, as the long tail of his garb flings the opposite way to be swept away.

 

“If they could ever offer me a solution out of this unforgiving truth and my crumbling sanctuary, which none in _Kamar-Taj_ , not even the one _you_ can offer,” still unanswered solution floats in his lungs like rising mud. It would entirely _consume_ him, if the grim darkness already hadn’t meddled with his long prominence of unhealed fury towards the humanity itself.

 

The book lies somewhere close to his foot, marked with so many of his usual miniscule scrawls no one would try to decipher even when they could try. “I’ve reached an impasse, so it’d be an ideal to let my mind wander. What do you want, the Ancient One?”


	2. Chapter 2

She is inclined to study his movements, for even the way he holds himself has changed since he came to her in his grief and despair. He is less desperate, less heavy on his feet, and his head is held much higher. He believes that he knows himself, which concerns her more than she could have ever foreseen. His entire being pulses with a darkness, invisible to all but her. It is entirely too obvious that there is something hidden that stirs within her when she considers the man he has become, a feeling she has associated with her younger years of youth and womanhood. Hazy memories, even to her. She doesn’t fight this emotion, for no emotion is meant to be beaten and suppressed like a wild animal, but she does question its legitimacy. 

 

She fears it, however, for it is weakness.

 

“I never suspected my mentorship alone would satisfy you, Kaecilius. That was not my intention upon taking you in, and you know that.”

 

The Sorceress does not choose to let herself wander in the dwellings of emotion, for the most prominent  _ thing _ that she feels is concern for the man who built himself from shards of broken mirrors since entering her sanctum. A brilliant, brilliant student who kept to himself, learned faster than anyone she ever had before, and gained a greater appreciation for the art than any man or woman she had ever taught. She motions for him to follow her, taking a moment to revel in silence between them before speaking once more. 

 

“You have become so indulged in your studies that I fear you forget yourself,” she said, looking straight ahead as they walked down the path. “You are a fantastic pupil...truly the best I ever had.” Her face softens as she recalls the day, the  _ moment _ , that she realized he was beginning to find himself again. When the broken mirror mended itself to his form and showed him the man that laid inside. He was  _ light. _ She had seldom seen anything like it.

 

“But you are becoming obsessive. Do you agree?” As it would be with any pupil, it would be useless to tell them something of themselves that they did not understand laid within. One could not truly conquer their demons; only rise above them. Become better than the things that sought to tear their spirit apart. Although now was not the appropriate time to deal with the more obtrusive set of emotions that clouded her vision of reason when she spoke with Kaecilius, she would soon seek answers as soon as she knew that he would not become a danger to himself or others. She would not admit this to the rest of the sanctum, but there were parts of him that even she had begun to fear.

 

____

 

Life had been a consistent uphill battle and he had been refusing for it to break him in pieces. Countless nights of being restless, tossing and turning with his mind full of encumbrance, all the filaments of thousands of cobwebs entwined to ensnare him in a petrified gloom. Even when he had broken every record of the Sanctum by a mile when he had been the youngest ever to be appointed as the Master of Mystic Arts, as most pupils had taken numerous years, even decades - if they were ever so determined and persistent through their training as they had to push through their souls to set themselves on fire, he wasn’t fully satisfied where the unreached boundary, of his surpassing pragmatism could carry him. Through that uncontrollable bundle of chaos residing within his heart, he was capable of feeling tremor coursing through him as if every pore and carbon structure of his skeleton had ceased to exist, if not for the fire growing deep within him as it fueled his own edge of the universe. 

 

Endless trials and errors, as he locked himself behind the glittering breaths of the mirror dimension, as thorny icy prickles turned his fanatic productiveness into the scorching and stuffy air, until he had shed the skin of yesterday and began growing one anew. Such unspoken words failed to eject as they ricocheted within his tangled mind, a profound labyrinthe of unrealized practices, spells and bend and warp the corporeal reality as it would turn inward. He wouldn’t even have to lift his dual-scythes, tucked safely behind the sash where he feels expansive core breathe. 

 

“Out of all the masters and pupils alike, you ought to know the most, for I don’t believe in hoarding the power and containing within yourself,” a sweeping gaze towards his master grows lucid, as if he had been piercing through her calmness, years of valiant triumph over what might be a dormant volcano beneath all that fortification. 

 

“And did I not meet all of your  _ satisfactions _ ?” Pale brows draw together in their shared silence, as narrowed hazel follows her trajectory. His nimble feet, encased in well-worn, yet tattered boots accompany her, barely making any trace. 

 

A certain kind of emotions were like oil streaks; permanent and immovable, as if he hadn’t diverted his grief and anger into something productive and useful, he would’ve turned into a raging turmoil, all the violated memories stirring up the most vehement slam as he would writhe in his own concoction.  _ How many times did he confound himself in his own medicine, as he recovered in silence?  _

 

Fingers slowly clench, curl with purpose as he feels all the hardened bones and calloused copper beneath the grip. “More like an impatient one wrapped in feral grief and impassioned anger,” he meets the sorceress’s eyes with unwavering gaze, as his ashen gaze grows ever defiant; for he’s blinded by his unretained abilities turning into disgrace, rather than living so much so with a sliver of hope for the future. 


	3. Chapter 3

“You have exceeded every expectation I have ever hoped for you,” she says quietly. She speaks the truth, for there is nothing he could have ever hoped to have done better than what he has accomplished under her guiding hand. In both combat and scholarly pursuits, Kaecilius had overcome every obstacle presented before him. His mind was a roaring inferno of potential when he came before her, so much so that she could not clearly see what path he would ultimately choose; now, it was becoming clearer by the day.

 

Now, sadness hangs heavy in her eyes, and a certain coldness seems to wrap itself around her bones. Something sinister was rising beyond the hills of Nepal. She could feel it, and at the core of the terrible premonition was Kaecilius and his desire to learn every secret the multidimension had to offer.

 

“You have never been one to fully heed my advice,” she says after a moment. “You prefer your own path, your own set of rules, or rather, no rules at all to dictate the course of action you choose to take. You prefer to be unbound by mortal laws...you are predictable, Kaecilius, but you are not the man who came to me so many years before.” She is always gentle when criticizing her pupils. Gentle, but never insincere. She has no qualms in adjusting behavior or performance, even if she has never believed in cruelty.

 

She stops where they walk, still facing directly ahead. She does not meet his eyes which she knows are filled with rage and misunderstanding. She knows this, and does not wish to witness his display of emotion in its raw form. But how could she possible convey what she knew he did not understand? All of his brilliance, his skill, his intelligence and raw emotion...and yet he would not understand her fears for him and for the rest of the sanctum. He could not see that he was becoming the very thing she feared would oneday become of a talented pupil who believed they could conquer the boundaries of the multidimension.

 

“Do you not know fear of what we still do not entirely understand? Fear is not always weakness. What we fear can help us better understand the root of what is still lost to us. Fear makes us sane, gives us boundaries on our abilities even when infinity stretches before us.” Now, she turns to face him, her expression solemn and hard, lips pressed tightly together as she feels her heart break at the very sight of what he has become.

 

“Fear would do you  **well** , Kaecilius.”

 

____

 

He feels no sense of proud, nor seeks justifiable evidence to prod into all the closed chapters in his encompassable tome. For what used to be a wandering, lifeless soul that had been unexpectedly plucked by Master Mordo, the solitude sorcerer had surpassed his combat master’s skills, in both astral projection and magic conjuring. If he had been a slave to that lazy voice within his recurring nightmare, to feel the gloomy persona that would metastasize into the mask that was trying to portray someone who wasn’t really him when he stepped into his last resort, now the raging battle within him had been entirely invested in Adria’s death. As his vision turned introspective, to regrow what he had been pulling at the roots so he could be impregnable. 

 

Yet, he feels bile words rise in him, filling his mouth as they push behind his set jaw and straightened, grim lips. 

 

“Though I much appreciate your guidance, the Ancient One, I still remain in remission; of that feeling of caving in, as if I had taken a fatal blow to my heart,” unwilling to cast away his virulent daggers at her, his glower might have already tore through her scarred cranium and through the yellow robe. “You are a hypocrite, forbidding the others of such blessed insight, while you hoard it with outrageousness with your so-called guidance to overcome their personal nadir.” Through numerous distortions of her manipulative projection, he could feel every extension of his taut muscles ignite with uprising anger. 

 

Long before, his transpired fury had directed him towards such unforbidden practice as he had sought a realm with no concept of time and death, where he could be entirely free from the light-polluted sky, of thick miasma brewing sempiternally beneath the liquid, bile and blood. Both his rudimental fuel to carry on and a corrosive agent that would make his stomach surge into his throat. 

 

And as the Sorcerer Supreme could see through him as no one ever could, she must be feeding off from the dark energy; _ a necessary evil _ to prevent the world from tipping over, at the hands of a separatist. 

 

“I will accept insanity before letting your thoughts spill over my consciousness. For you have colored my whole world in festering putridity. I’ve chased after your philosophy, which had been built on lies, all fabricated plains and fields, all colored with same faded green, while you see through the kaleidoscope of vivid colors,” the cracked skin darkens a shade further as his palms caress together in mid-air, forming a clear, crystallized blade. Cords around his forehead protrudes, as his filmy gaze locks around his non-dominant hand, which clasps around the sorceress’ collar. “I could seethe to your end, _ a liar and a hypocrite _ , have you foreseen this to come?” 


	4. Chapter 4

“ _ I do nothing more or less than what I  _ **_must_ ** _.” _

 

Her eyes are burning, lips curled into what was almost a snarl as her body goes rigid with preparation to fight. Every word drips of disrespect and utter disdain for all she has given him, all she has felt for him since he came sobbing at her feet. What she saw now was not a man, but a  **child** . And it enraged her to see all of her work, all of  _ his _ work fall apart right before her eyes. If he thought he was to become God, she would be the one thing that would stand in his way even if she had to give her life in order for him to be stopped.

 

Waving her hands in a slow, languid motion, she thrusts her arm forward and strikes him down, sending his body crashing to the earth several meters away. She felt disgusted at this creature, and condemned him for daring to lay a hand on her. In knowing that she has worked her entire life to uphold this sanctum, to uphold the order of sorcerers and masters-in-training, to guide others to seek peace and wisdom and tap within the power that lays inside of them...to have her efforts be put down in such an act of disrespect not only sadden her, but send a boiling rage through her veins.

 

“You  **_test_ ** me Kaecilius. I have shown you nothing but kindness.” She stalks towards him, hood upturned, magical shields springing from her hands. If he were to challenge her, she would not back down. She did not  _ want _ to fight him. Her heart still ached for the man she met in his early days of training, the memories cruel in the back of her mind. Who was he to speak of what he did not know?

 

“You know nothing of me. Nothing of what I do, nor why I do it. Nothing of what i have sacrificed for men like you. You do not know of what you seek, for it is beyond your understanding no matter what you may believe.” The Sorceress stands before him, and she is calm, her breathing controlled, muscles relaxed, yet alert.  **She** was in control. He would not twist her words or her beliefs into his own design of sheer mockery. 

 

“I will not kill you, Kaecilius, but I will not allow you to wander down this untrodden path any longer. This ends.” And she would ensure that her eyes would not prick with tears of unbridled emotion, nor show any weakness in the face of a radical zealot that she feared he had become. No longer angry, the Ancient One stands in wait for his response, be it physical or another verbal attack.

____

 

A familiar stillness, as all accumulated emotions condense in every way imaginable. Against the back of his unwavering orbs, tinged with freezing bones and threading pain, he feels as if he’s been locked in an icy prison and his heart was thawing, slowly spilling forth slatted ribs to incinerate his untapped power, drawn from the Dark Dimension. 

 

Before he is about to thrust gleaming sculpted blade into her heart, his focused mind scatters against the sun-scorched earth as he collides onto it like a blazing fire, sending heavy trails of dirt and dust in his direction. An intermittent, yet incessant swooshing of his boiling blood continues to be amplified through his eardrums and as quick-footed and nimble he is with every stretched contour of his encased musculature, he briskly picks himself up after letting his body vortex itself to lessen the impact through the trajectory, as their eyes meet in collision, through the thick fog. 

 

“ _ Kindness… _ ,” his lips are cold, dripping with icy pins and venom as his vertebrae tightens, a slow thrust upon his side agglomerates through the cavern of his heart with a significant, forceful push. The vivacity and vividness of his dilating hazel beneath his strewn shut lips tell more of the story. “You instilled the blackness within me, how many times I’ve  _ caved in _ , to relinquish myself of the burning misery and freezing soul as I had withered away? You should’ve left me in that event horizon,” clenching his teeth as both arms grasp the handles of his well-distinguished weapon that had decapitated multitudes of trainees, oppositions and irrefutably respectable masters alike, he feels the sudden flaring energy engulf him whole, in invisible strands. 

 

“What you offer with such forbidden restriction, Dormammu offers freely. Time is relative, so is death. I refuse to be bound by your so-called  _ benevolence _ offered with earthly shackles.” He encircles around the pillar which separate their distance, as he feels such tumultuous energy upon the scalding palm. He’s no more bound by the transient trophy of the title, nor the power which had been tapped beneath indestructible walls of his humanity. 

 

His abysmal gaze deepen further like an unfathomable well; no more of a column of light green specks tinting bright colors into the cornea like a spilled bucket of paint, as his filtered gaze seeks the sorceress before him as his mortal enemy. “I could foresee your death, ever so clearly.” A flick of his palm sends the grounds to rattle, as it begins to slant at a dramatic angle. He’s quick to get ahold of the base of the column, as he straddles it with his thighs as he withdraws his gleaming tips. 


	5. Chapter 5

There is nothing she can say, for no words could make up for the destruction he had already wreaked upon every hope and dream she had held for him. There is a stillness in the air now, and she waits in the storm that is yet to come. Was she such a hypocrite to draw upon Dormammu's power in the way that she did, and yet criticize him so freely?

 

The answer was _yes._ For their motives were, and always had been, different. The creature before her was going to end the world if she did not intervene. His words filled her with such a dread that would consume her if she were a weaker soul, to know that every ounce of determination and devotion she had committed to him had been utterly wasted. She had been wrong, utterly wrong to accept him through her doors. Wrong to have seen him as she did. There was nothing left for him now.

 

“I was wrong to love you as I did, Kaecilius,” she said. Her hood pulled down over her face, the Sorceress took a grounding stance as the world began to split apart around her, launching herself to the opposite end of the pillar where the shields of her hands began to spin and whirl below her outstretched palms. Sending them hurtling in his direction, the Sorceress grounds herself on the pillar, shaping the physical realm to center her gravity on its side, so that she would not fall with Kaecilius’s spell. As she would expect, the world was ending...splitting into a thousand pieces in this realm as she fought for control over the whirling objects of matter.

  
  
With a sharp swing of her arms, she directs the lower-most level of matter, the ground and the base of the pillar, skyward. Grabbing hold of the base, she centers her gravity and splits the rest of the matter to create a ravine where he stood. As she forms the mirror realm around them, she knows it will not hold as long as he is still summoning his energy from Dormammu. It would lessen the damage for a short period of time, at least until she could contain him... _if_ she could contain him.

 

“Surrender and you will not die,” she commanded, her face hidden behind her hood. One hand to the pillar, she glances upward as the ground begins to cave in on itself, a loud roar hammering in her eardrums. “This world is not for your taking, Kaecilius. While I am alive and here to protect it, you will always fail.”

___

 

Shattering tectonic plates, along with the levitating cornerstones of the vehement sanctum brings almost imperceptible smirk upon his lips, which arches his so long-afflicted facade that had been held captive with such serious grief. It’s the succumbing feeling of euphoria through amoral violence; _in hedonism, destruction could be utterly beautiful and it would echo right back with a loud triumph and percussion of battle cry._ His feelings are evermore accumulative in his heart’s mountains and he realizes how ravenously starving and thirsty he had been all those years, without knowing how the genuine love tastes like.

 

“What do you know about _love_ ?” He gently prods, lips trembling gradually as if his pulsing heart had already reached to ravage through his esophagus with burning emotions. His tone is still laced with portent violence as his brewing maelstrom condenses to hurl towards the source of contempt before him. Letting his face drop as he could feel the scalding hotness rise as swiftly as it did with his exploding fury. “ _Squandering_ your opportunity as crumbled fortress of lies and deception eventually outweighed your genuine attempt to take me into your arms.” His love had been _beyond measure_ , transpiring his unrealized love as the promise of his love rendered to be too fragile, as tenacious memories of her became transient. His own skin would become battered, broken and almost nonexistent in grueling layer of both violence and tenderness.

 

“Would you live a life of simultaneous joy and pain, an inseparable company upon one another as you mourn the moment of my undertaking, my rudimental awakening.” The mirror dimension itself begins to crumble beneath mountainous weight of the boulders, a stark visualization of their footprints, for their memories would be the only graspable tangibility after this calamity.

 

Words become as coarse as sea salt, as his own impermanence and the permanent association his body goes through the near moment of oblivion, seemingly holding an infinity begins to feel unbearable. Curled fingers tighten, as familiar shift of realm surrounds and locks his reflection within the tumbling reality.

 

“Never!” The idea grows even more elusive with darkened gaze smoldering through the silvery sparkles of cascade. “I will triumph over your dead, crushed corpse and see the world crumble in its wrongdoing.”

 

Yet, contrastingly to his harrowing words, he could feel his unrestrained form completely part away from his seemingly fluid form, clutching his former-master as the scene locks in a fluttering snapshot. His heart hammers so frantically that the beats resonate through his head and mouth. His long matted hair covering half of his face as it drapes across his face. His limbs, which seemed to move under a puppetry becomes unhindered and liberated, the fading afterglow of the movement lingers as he barely is able to lift his knee up, preventing his sleek body from sliding off the side to be submerged within his body, still unconscious.


	6. Chapter 6

Everything was happening so quickly, the Sorceress could not keep up. As she prepared to cast a spell that would entrap him beneath the earth, the large pillar comes tumbling down from its skyward position. The Ancient One is only just able to cast a shield above them to lessen the impact of the blow, a crushing weight that would have surely killed them both, only to buckle under its weight. With a harsh gasp, her spirit rips itself from her body as the ruble crumbles over their unconscious bodies. Floating just above Kaecilius’s physical form, she snaps her head up and prepares to fight him again.

 

“I was your teacher,” she said mournfully, looking around for any sign of his spirit hovering above the crumbling pillar. “My tenderness for you was something I would have rather shown in more appropriate ways...I would have been happy seeing you become the man I knew you could have been. In years time, I was ready to have you take my place.” The Sorceress did not move, choosing only to hover above their sleeping bodies, for time was only passing at a fraction of the speed in the physical realm.

 

“I am willing to beg, Kaecilius. Do not do this. You are capable of wonderful things and you are only going to bring yourself sorrow.” Weightless and airy, she sees that their bodies took no serious damage; she would deal with herself when appropriate. “Pain, death, and darkness await you...you will never see Adria or your child down the path you are choosing for yourself.”    
  


But the Sorceress knew there was nothing that she could say to make him realize the terrible reality of the mistake he was choosing to make. She did not curse herself for being blind to the situation, although her particular tenderness towards Kaecilius was something she, even now, was regretting. There was no way he could have known; it had been many, many years since she had ever taught a student as brilliant and as devoted as he. But he was terribly blind by grief and remorse, lead astray by the belief that only he and Dormammu could bring himself the happiness and relief that he sought.

 

But she would be a fool to give in. He would not take this world, and he would not allow Dormammu to have this earth for his own bidding. His form rang with dark, seething energy; what Kaecilius sought was no empty threat. He truly meant to summon the dark dimension here, and the Sorceress knew that she could not do this alone for much longer. 

____

 

A hint of rueful mourning crosses his face, albeit briefly. This had been the realized  _ monstrosity _ of his metaphor, as the training grounds of the Kamar-Taj and its vast vehement architecture crumbles down with a mere sweep of his fingers. As more succession of scalding waves, along with twisting and unstoppable fissure spreads like a sweeping wildfire upon the stranded violence, he’s able to pluck himself free from the vain of his existence. Before the ravaging evidence of his wrath and determination records upon his skin in slashing croquis lines as his consciousness hangs by a thread, he watches his transparent body project before the squashing mirror dimension. 

 

“Yes, the word  _ ‘was’ _ the most crucial key word of all,” all of the master-to-be pupils and fellow former-masters alike knew of his sorrows and griefs, as strained breaths squeezed through him, exacerbating his blood, sweat and tears and heavy exhaustions that followed. It wasn’t a secret that he pushed both his physicality and mentality until none of the reserve prompted to fuel him and such infesting grogginess had served him to be stagnant in his training, until the very sorceress standing before him offered her  _ guidance _ . 

 

Her words act as a bit of a wake-up call, upon his tense muscles and unending rippling waves of incinerating heat pressing against his grim, ashen eyes. Yet, knowing the Ancient One took powers from Dormammu, she would remain  _ immortal _ , stuck forever in her age, which would be a few years younger in appearance, he supposed. 

 

“I haven’t changed a bit, I’m still the one who is forever riddled with unending vortex of pain,  _ disproportionately _ excessive amount thinking about what could’ve been and should’ve been and envisioning myself in her arms.” 

 

Hearing the spoken name, his world bursts into festering flames and warping pain writhes through the unfurled strands of his astral form and he shrieks. “A rather  _ improbable _ explanation you’re offering, and you’ve had enough of your say. Two of the Sanctums have already fallen. Though my physical, weaker form should remain here, I can very well bring the Hong Kong one down myself after I step over you in the process.” 

  
His unrealized dream would soon come into reality and he’s so close. A thrusting motion produces a gleaming blade, as he quickly lifts. Thrusting it towards her heart as his floating foot catches in the heap of debris, he dives and plunges into her form as he sets his jaw shut, along with his grim lips.  


	7. Chapter 7

She can hardly shield herself in time. She is just able to protect herself before the blade can thrust itself through her spiritual form, something that would have killed her as the blade worked on the metaphysical level. With a cry, she produces the same blade, drawn from the power of Dormammu just as he was able to create, and prepared herself to be struck again.

 

“You will have to kill me first,” she said as she struck back. Not anger nor sorrow, love nor longing would cloud her vision. It was a simple fact; if this were indeed the last sanctum standing, he would not take it while she was still alive.

 

“If our bodies remain under that pillar much longer, we will die,” she said calmly, floating within feet of him, blade drawn. “Our bodies won’t be able to handle the weight. Even if mere milliseconds are passing in the physical realm, our time is limited, and you will be unable to kill me before your body gives in and dies. Do you know where we go once we die, Kaecilius? That is one question I have never been able to answer...in all my many years upon this earth, it is one mystery that still remains unsolved. I would not like to find out today, and I call upon you to drop your weapon.”

 

She gazed upon him coldly as she held the blade stiffly in her hand.

 

“But I can assure you that wherever it is you  _ think _ you may go, Adria is not waiting for you there. Not down this path, Kaecilius. All I ask is for you to believe me, for I have been on this earth much longer than you.” Her face showed no emotion; no fear, no anger, no longing although it rang loudly in her soul, the desire to  _ save _ him from himself, even if he was beyond such a possibility now. In her longing, the Ancient One knew she would always have weakness that she was unwilling to purge from herself entirely.

 

“Your pain, your longing, your search to better yourself here at Kamar-Taj...it will have all been for nothing at all if this is the choice you choose to make. I will give you one, last, chance, Kaecilius.”  _ Only because you once held the light of the world in your eyes, your eyes that are not rotting out of your face even as we speak. _

 

____

 

His eardrums ring with countless reverberations and gradually turns strident, along with the toppling and crumbling earth. For once, through the encased, hardened musculature and equally soldered skin which tops it, he is breaking sweat and his heart races. In his head, both suffocating and swelling thought of such unexpected death severs his determination and he’s drowning in all the other sensations around him. For once, he withdraws his gaze in a descent, as his abysmal grimness hovers over the lifeless body of his, about to be crushed without a single room to expand his broad chest. 

 

Then, he’s accompanied with such familiar images of Adria and his son, as they both drown and suffocate in dreary whirl of bleak darkness as merciless torpedo whips through their desiccated skins, leaving them in a heap of strewn skeleton, gnawed and frail. His form fossilizes and entraps in the air, as he suspends with the formulated blade still clutched tight around his hand, so coiled that his palm might bleed. 

 

His orbs remain pendulous, as words emitted by the Ancient One continues to entrap him in the subspace. Immobile, as if locked in a block of ice as a chill of despair and longing both crosses the crackled surface, which seems to be retracting. It crawls back into his hazel, and traverses through his spine, locking him in a series of flaring shiver and paroxysms marching up to conquer his limbs and bound them in mid-air. 

 

“I have only dreamed in my recurrent reverie,” every chord on his neck stands up and vibrate with brewed tension and he could feel his strained flesh throb with outward distress. Something he even couldn’t comprehend and solve through his scholarly pursuits and long attempts at meditation. His coppery skin scalds, not only with his seething anger, but in an inward contemplation as unexplainable surge of emotion topples over him; too wrapped and ensorcelled in  _ desolation _ ,  _ disbelief _ and  _ ruefulness _ . 

 

“I’ve been so determined in my profuse longing to be reunited with them…,” had he faced such a vehement barrier as his floating form limps with weaving torpidity? His veined hand tremors, as the other clutches the tail of his robe on his physical form. His gaze desperately shoots up, as he utters out with clenched teeth. “If we get out of this mortal avalanche and prevent what’s about to happen, it means you won’t be able to draw powers from Dormammu itself.” 

 

As much as he still wishes to face and challenge her for hoarding such powers all by herself, this wasn’t the denouement he had sought after. 


	8. Chapter 8

The Sorceress considered his words for what felt like a long moment. This was a man she once held in high regard, a man who had been so brilliant he had astounded even her. All of the sadness of the world seemed to weigh on his shoulders, every ounce of sorrow and deep, everlasting despair that gave him not a moment’s worth of relief. Their bodies were dying as they spoke. She needed to act, and act quickly.

 

“If it means bringing you back to Kamar-Taj.”  _ If it means bringing you back to me once more. _ “I will forgo my hold on Dormammu and become mortal once more. I will grow old. My body will age. And in time, I will die. But only if you swear to protect this world as you were meant to, Kaecilius. Only if you swear you will stand by my side where you belong.”  _ And then I will not have to kill you, and maybe we will once more know the peace we have sought after for so long.  _ The Sorceress was not about to forgive his wrongdoings; he would have to earn back her trust, prove his worth to her over again. But even so, she held out her hand in an act of solidarity.

 

“We will enter our bodies once more and take back our hold on this world. And I will no longer keep secrets from you, Kaecilius. Not anymore.”

 

And that was a promise she intended to keep.

 

As the world fell around them, the Sorceress could feel uneasiness rising in her chest once more. She hoped this was the right decision, and she hoped that she could guide him to the light as she had countless others before him. Perhaps she had lived long enough. Forty more years on this earth would be enough for her, if it was enough for everybody else. 

 

“Join me. Please.” Her eyes softened. This would be the last time she would ask. If he chose not to join her, she would harness the every ounce of dark magic from the dimension that had given her life for so long and unleash it upon him before he could blink. There was no other way out, no more room for negotiation or trial. This would either be the beginning or the end of a brave, new world for the two of them, and she was prepared for the worst.

___

His former mentor’s words bonds over to every pore with such astonishing grip. They manifest into both the venomous drug coursing through his system and as the taste of danger on his tongue, as the strings attached upon the deepest reserve strengthened to take hold of the detached reality. It wasn’t the  _ confrontation _ itself he had feared - it was the  _ aftermath _ , the wreckage that would leave him to metamorphose into a completely different creature that he would dare not face sober nor unscathed. For the things that hurt right away never leave a permanent mark; the things he doesn’t notice will bruise him, as weightless mess burns through his stomach and intestines.

 

The human mind was a resilient and inexorable thing, especially his own. It just didn’t know the concept of ‘giving the fuck up.’ He wasn’t ever the one to let something slide as it didn’t matter. And he could still see the multitude of his carbon copies, congruently (and treacherously) staring him in mockery. In his valiant search, he had paradoxically lost his clutch upon Adria and his beloved son as he had been absent from the essentiality of their relationship.

 

“I feel my thoughts are breaking free through the cracks of my head, the person I used to be doesn’t exist anymore, or better, had gone astray,” perhaps he had been slipping away, detouring as his brain vibrates way too fast as his steering leads him to lose consciousness. “It all seems my good intentions meant nothing if the result is utter annihilation.” 

 

The tips of his finger quivers both in denial and in search for the truth; he knows he still demands an answer, tracing every step of his divergence and aberration to the cast shadows guide him towards reconciliation. Nevertheless, he extends his arm to search for the fleeting comfort, as he longs to soothe himself as his own flame flickers. He knows her promise touches his heart and the snuffed flame would aglow and brighten with the first ambulatory step towards the light. 

 

Those meshes of cuts from his past cut deeper than knives and just like moth to a flame, he would only see red and reduced down to charred ash without the weight on the balance. Kisses over widening stitches. “Consider it done, Sorcerer Supreme,” it had been a few profound lesson in his fading humanity and it was about time to saddle his tunnel vision elsewhere and see the monastery stand tall above anything else, as a sanctuary of sorcery. 


	9. Chapter 9

There is profound  _ relief _ in her eyes, for if nothing else, the world would be kept from destruction from a madman, even if she was operating on borrowed time. The Sorceress bowed her head, and around them the world began to warp and bend back to its original form. As she re-entered her body, she pushed herself from the wreckage with a grunt of pain, gently touching her rib cage to mend the broken bones. It would be some time before the pain faded entirely, as she was not entirely above the immediate release of pain from the human body. As Kaecilius entered back into his physical form, she extended her hand once more in an offer of peace.

 

“You are hurt,” she said calmly, pushing a pile of wreckage off of his body. “Let me heal you.”

 

The man that Kaecilius came to her as so long ago was no more, nor did she want the shell of a man that had fallen to her feet to become  _ this _ man again. She wanted him for who she knew he was; a man of great wisdom and intelligence, of great power and great strength. The toil the dark arts had taken upon his body would be almost entirely reversible with the right spell, but she feared there would be scars that would last him a lifetime. Scars upon both his flesh and his mind. She would not treat him as a child, but she knew he would need to be regarded with caution. The Sorceress did not yet know if this would truly be the end of his obsessive need for destruction.

 

“You are a man, Kaecilius,” she said gently as she moved to help him to his feet. “Just as I am still a woman. We have traveled to worlds beyond human comprehension, experienced things that no man nor woman may ever see in a hundred lifetimes. But we are human nonetheless, and we experience the wonderful joys and terrible pains of being as such. Emotions are a  _ tide. _ Like the moon and the sea, our needs and desires are an ever-changing, beautiful cycle of who we are. I have told you once and again: you are capable of wonderful things. That is what I have always wanted since the day you walked through my door.”

 

He would heal. And even if she would not trust him the same way as before, he too would heal and see the light that the world had to offer. She could only hope, for it was the only thing left for her to hold onto.

____

It’s not the swirls of stifling wind, whipping away the clinging droplets of sweat off Kaecilius’ glimmering skin that makes his blood flow with such foreignness, but it is the barren dryness and devastated landscape which in return, becoming an embodiment of iced wind, frigid against his nakedness of his body and soul as the familiar hopelessness weighs down upon him with the wrecking confusion. It swallows him like the looming darkness, gradually slanting to blend his form into the obsidian as more onslaught of attack becomes a series of unrelenting whiplash. Even when the world rebuilt itself upon the sorceress’ fingertips as he was very well gifted with the same dimension-warping ability, he knew his existence hadn’t been so extraordinary to himself as he had failed. 

 

He was a  **destroyer** , a harbinger of  **death** and calamitous  **destruction** , not a healer who was capable of mending the world. 

 

It’s even more devastating and decrepitating than their exchanged succession of blows, as the thought itself weighs heavily on every strand of muscle as more he longed for the  _ liberation _ , Kaecilius managed to deny it further. He isn’t  _ not _ aware of its consequences nor the repercussions of the lashing sweeps and thrusts of the mystic forces towards the world, as he had been engulfed in paradoxical full of  _ bottomless hope  _ and  _ cynical apathy  _ towards this whole process; to have so many dreams and so much fear. As his heart and head constantly  _ burns _ ,  _ aches _ and  _ writhes _ with desire. 

 

“Yet you approach and tend me like a child,” as unbearable pain makes his whole facial feature to crinkle tight, frantic breaths rattle against the gravel-kicked barren earth as he sees whirling colors of twilight with his eyes closed. 

 

Beneath the suit of hardened armor, now linked with myriads of iron scales as he had repeatedly pummeled and dashed against the undefendable earth, there lied a fervent man, who longed to revel in the mundane and the ordinary. No more he’d drown himself in sorrow, seek for antagonizing means of justice (and injustice) upon the world. Such unfathomable lupine gaze accentuates the crevasse of Kaecilius’ hazel as pain and love collides and commingles. 

 

“Right now, I’m tumbling against the merciless currents beneath the eroded cliff, as jagged rock formations tear and rip me open to bare it all.” The seething ire, aches and screams would subside as he crawls through those thorns as he bleeds and bleeds. The stain would remain and that would be his to embrace. 


	10. Chapter 10

“I approach you as I would any deeply wounded student. If you do not want my help, I will not give it.”

 

The Sorceress stood calmly, hands folded at her waist, watching him carefully. She would strike him down should he decide to deceive her, and she would show him no mercy this time. Though her chest ached with a burning tenderness for this dangerous man, she would not allow him to become her weakness. She believed he could be better, be stronger and braver and everything that he could be. The darkness in his mind was surging. She could only hope he would learn to reign it in and use it for good.

 

“Your suffering paints colors of black beneath your eyes. One could grow lost inside your mind, Kaecilius. You are a mystery even to me.”

 

Keeping her distance, she could taste the tension in the air between them. He was still angry. He was  _ contemplating. _ But he was willing to change, which was enough for her to offer him another chance to be all that he could. She could feel Dormmamu’s clouds hang heavy over her eyes. She, too, could end this world if she so desired. But she would not. She would  _ never. _ For another man to wield the power that she possessed was a terrifying concept, as was releasing the hold it had over her mind. She would be a mortal woman again, age with the tides of the ocean as everyone else did. She would die.

 

But if Kaecilius’s rage taught her nothing, it was that all things needed to be let go, lest they become consumed by the very thing they sought to set them free.

 

“I will no longer continue to draw power from the dark dimension. If you would be willing to help me, I would like to sever my tie with Dormammu once and for all. I will age and die like a mortal woman, although I will still possess the power I have tended and grown inside of me since I began my journey with the mystic arts.”

 

The Sorceress was more than capable of doing it herself. But this act of solidarity could better show Kaecilius how serious she was.

 

“But first, I would ask again that you let me heal you. You are not a child, but a man. Please.”

___

Always competing and running a sprint when everybody else runs a marathon, his streak of relentless motivation and willpower to excell had proven him uncontestable; for he had been a paragon of a pedantic virtuoso, had he reeled in so many obstacles, yet he tried to rise above them as he masqueraded as a virulent creature always ready to strike. Yet, his weakness breathes over his shoulders, as if his own life are two separate threads out of many; running parallel to each other, intersecting the same lines.  _ Connected _ , yet  _ independent _ . His self frays and the Sorcerer Supreme would let him be.

 

Only silent  _ muffling _ and bubbling gush elicits such response as his eyes open a fraction as lined ribs pulsate in dull, throbbing pain that would soon turn into jagged pricks. The distant sound of ebbing flow acting as a catalyst for his  _ awakening _ . Through tensing muscles, dashing veins working extra miles to supply his extorted blood. His body remains suppliant, yet his own body almost seem to negate the  _ indispensable _ paradox with unacceptance. Regardless of his beseeching body and seemingly and strikingly diminutive figure, his puppet-like figure with no strings attached maneuvers against his will as he attempts to regain his finesse.

 

“I regret to say though I may have been your most exceptional student up to date, I hadn’t been blessed with fingers of the healer. I wish that fathom of abyss wasn’t the same place I would walk on sempiternally, pulling the ground from beneath my feet as I do so.”

 

Pain lingers and seeps through his facade, as it had been his entire world as he had perceived it with such normalcy.  _ How can he ever look at this differently? For he had been defacing and defaming himself in this futile breathless realization that paints deathly hues upon his hazel? _

 

Still entrapped in the vertigo of whirling heatwave and whirling tornado with debris flying off at him like a burst of rapid-fire gunshot exploding too close to his core as the world had reconstructed himself,  his elemental and unrestrained need to sustain himself is the only thing that silences that calamity to briefly halt in a ceasefire. His form would be always that shattered piece of mended vase, enable to encompass whatever it would be thrown at him, yet he still has to patch whatever holes there may be, as they consumes him. 

 

“Then take my hands and make them do something other than wreaking destruction,” his grim lips becomes the sickle curve of the moonlight, etching through his darkest hours as he endures the pain of having to deal with such unfamiliarity. 


	11. Chapter 11

The Ancient One is gentle, as she has always sworn to be, even to the most once-formidable of foes. Those who resign their power and submit to her will gain her mercy more times than not; Kaecilius was not an exception to this minor rule. But it would not be something she performed on her own. Kaecilius was going to learn to do other things with his immeasurable talent than destroy and corrupt, whether he wanted to or not.

 

“I will channel my magic through your hands. This will be your first lesson in learning to soften your abilities and use them for something else. I will not heal all of your wounds; the rest will be up to you. Observe carefully.”

 

And without waiting for him to respond, she took his hands and placed them over the more life-threatening wound across his abdomen. Inhaling steadily, the Sorceress closed her eyes and channeled her energy through his veins. This way, the molecules in his skin absorbed the adrenal power and responded by healing him on their own, knitting the skin and muscle together bit by bit. It was not an easy task, and not one the Sorceress could have completed quickly without her years of practice. But she believed Kaecilius could do it on his own.

 

“Do you understand?” she asked as she stepped away. “The body is an instrument of delicate design. We must use our abilities to teach it to do its job better than it understands on its own. One must be gentle with their body. Delicate.  _ Patient. _ Less you make your injuries worse than they already are. Think of it as a teacher and a student where your skin and muscle is the learner, and you must be the one to deliver your wisdom.”

 

She stepped back once the serious wound was healed, gently placing Kaecilius’ hands on his lap. If she were to be honest, she pitied him as much as she feared and loved him. It was dangerous to allow herself to be in this position.

 

“With your remaining injuries, you will not die, but I will not tend to the rest as I want you to learn to do it yourself. You  _ will _ learn, Kaecilius. You always have.”

___

He always had been a human personification of a  _ firework _ ;  **dangerous** and pretty damn  _ radiant _ , drawing attention wherever he would go. Through the steely gaze that would blister and burn, the rudimental desire to express his every thought resurfaced in juxtaposition to his effortless rage. For love doesn’t make his screwed-up world turn into a slow motion picture nor it fast forwards so fast that he gets completely lost, with a scrambling feet.

 

He simply remains pendulating between wanting to completely forget the memories, but not the person, as he had sacrificed his happiness to give him another chance to rise on top. Escaping his past and letting those newfound power to become a temporal band-aid for all the old wounds. For he’s no stranger to the notion of people, or concepts leaving him.  _ ‘Forever _ ,’ apparently has an expiration date and his loss creeps into every inch of his being, becoming a self-destructive and deprecating addiction of his that he simply couldn’t and still can’t shake. 

 

He’s too lost in that vanished love to respond; what used to be like standing in a pond and feeling the waves of the benign, gentle ocean had consumed and flipped his world upside down. If this was the chance to ever live his rest right side up, then he’ll slowly break through the rough edges and journey through it with such modicum. And he’s all too aware of his nerve endings, committing the healing process to memory even though it still makes no sense to his brain.

 

Blood coats every slatted ribs, so does his baneful depth of his seething mark of his hazel. A result of his heart’s  _ trickery _ . Carved with the keenest blade, which had been coated with gleaming virulency towards his own humanity and such hatred towards the others that would rip the world apart of its core. “I’ve always known to scream until my throat would catch fire, none to cherish the silence out of my chest and reduce myself beyond irreparable. Down to soot and ash.” Pushing beyond extreme.

 

He’s attuned with his body, yet times have changed. Kaecilius finds himself rewinding the clock, back to the mind of the desperate. A glimpse into his daily struggles as bellowing aches overwhelmed his burden. Muscles burn, his strength drains, yet he finds the crumbled world rebuilt beneath the weight of his silence.

 

“I know I won’t - I will let my walls come down and my heart melt, so that they could commit to the latter in the language of healing.”  


End file.
